Chocolate to Morphine: Understanding Mind-Active Drugs (Paperback)

~ (Author), Winifred Rosen (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (P) (March 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395331900
• ISBN-13: 978-0395331903
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #611,189 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars From Chocolate to Morphine and Back to Chocolate, October 1, 2008

By	Pavel Somov, Ph.D., Author of Eating the Mome... (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) - See all my reviews

W-R's "Chocolate to Morphine" is a clinically "libertarian," non-prescriptive sourcebook on psychoactive drugs. Written in 1983, the book presents a non-histerical, balanced, and normalizing discussion of civilization-old curiosity about one's own consciousness.

Weil and Rosen are clear about their mandate: "our intention is not to encourage drug use by any one, nor is to discourage drug use" (p. 175). The authors don't tempt, nor do they forbid. They calmly educate. With the existential humanism of the 60s cohort, they place the responsibility squarely on the consumer and only caution: "there are no good or bad drugs, only good or bad uses of drugs... people must learn to look at and analyze their own and others' relationship with drugs" (p. 176).

The book begins with an honest, non-patronizing, sobering review of the notion of "drugs." The openining line of "The drugs are here to stay" is not a pessimistic prognosis about the war on drugs, but a kind of conceptual de-toxification of the toxic connotations of the word "drugs." The book proceeds with a methodical, encyclopedic review of various classes of drugs, their psychoactive profiles, uses and misuses.

Thematically, despite the official disawoval of a mandate, the book does articulate a value: it takes the reader from chocolate to morphine and back to chocolate - i.e. from normalizing the human desire to experiment with consciousness to a review of legal and illegal ways of doing so to an eventual soft pitch of "natural highs." Here the book makes an important contribution - in the very last chapter entitled "Alternatives to Taking Drugs," we see a beaming photo of Weil (he's clearly happy and doesn't look stoned) and we read: "being high doesn't mean being drugged" and "drugs don't contain highs... highs exist within the human nervous system; all drugs do is trigger highs." So there you go: you don't have to go to the corner - the dealer is in your head...

I agree. In my work with substance users (in correctional setting), I used Weil's and Rosen's ideas to design a "Natural Highs" group protocol. It was well received by the inmate clients: it made sense. Normalize the desire to experiment, and offer a psychologically healthier, legally-safer, financially more palatable, and socially sanctioned "natural high" alternative - that seems to be W & R's educational formula.

The book I read and own and came to love is the 1983 original edition. Have the authors toned down their existentially-"libertarian," harm-reduction stance to buffer against the antagonism of the abstinence paradigm? I frankly don't care to find out.


Pavel Somov, Ph.D.
Author of "Eating the Moment: 141 Mindful Practices to Overcome Overeating One Meal at a Time" (New Harbinger, Nov. 2008) and of "Recovery Equation: Motivational Enhancement/Choice Awareness/Use Prevention: an Innovative Clinical Curriculum for Substance Use Treatment"

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